What better, as I look out to an endless sky of snow fall than a band that belong in sunnier times, La Luz are a four-piece from Seattle led by Shana Cleveland, I discovered them (and a few other bands that will feature here over the next weeks as I slowly write up the posts) during a four hour bandcamp session on Tuesday evening where I spent quite a few pounds and found a great few acts....

La Luz released the EP Damp Face in September last year and it's bloody excellent too, initially a cassette release (that seems to be all gone) you can download the EP via bandcamp now. The quartet combine classic doo-wap backing vocals and surf-rock cool with a dusty Widowspeak-esque dreamlike sound.

Opening "Call Me in the Day" highlights that to delicious effect with slow-motion military drumming and a deep bass throb setting a hazy tempo for Shana's haunting moodiness to coerce your brain to blissful times. In contrast, the title track "Damp Face" is an Americana instrumental with a psychedelic mood and fast-racing rhythms and similarly on "Sure as Spring", a fast paced dose of full blown nostalgia inducing rock & roll fun times where you can almost transport yourselves back to a old school dance - if you did that sort of thing as a youth...

Another Ennio Morricone homage is the hazy "Clear Night Sky" with spidery guitar patterns that jangle and twang around an infectious, creepy melody while the closing track is another stunner, "Easy Baby" slows things down with a languid, lazy day melody and brings those Spector girl groups straight back to the fore with gorgeous backing harmonies, super, super sweet.